River of Flame

River of Flame is a random encounter in Tales from the Tiers.

Overview
"Your journey across the blackened, scalded earth of the Contested Lands is interrupted as the stones beneath your feet tremble. With a groan that shakes the sky and rattles your ribs, the earth tears violently open, throwing an arcing gout of flame, smoke, and cinders into the air. The pyrotechnic arc collapses as quickly as it arose, spraying sparks across the stone as it crashes to the ground. You find yourself separated from your destination by a wide and curving band of slowly-flowing lava."

Flow
You have several options for dealing with the crossing:
 * Craft a bridge.
 * Between the gear in your packs and the remnants of blasted trunks that dot the landscape, you manage to fashion a workable - if precarious - crossing over the shifting molten stone. Shielding your mouth against the smoke, you make your way above the flow and continue on your journey.
 * (if unsuccessful) You look around for materials to craft a bridge from, but you find nothing.
 * Jump the gap.
 * With a running leap you throw yourself across the chasm, sliding to an abrupt stop on the far side. Your legs tingle, singed by the brutal heat, but you continue towards your destination undeterred.
 * (if lacking Athletics) You examine the gap, even going so far as to make a couple of short jogs towards it, before deciding there's no way you can make the jump.
 * Cool the lava.
 * ''Your hands twist and contort, signing the symbol of the Archon of Frost into the air, drawing down the ancient history of rime. You gesture outwards, channeling the arcane energies forward, and they take shape in a blast of air frigid enough to freeze a Tiersman in their tracks.
 * You see no effect at first, but continued effort causes the molten flow to slow, darken, and finally stop entirely. You make your way across the gully before the heat of the Edict of Fire can break up the earth again.


 * Find another route.
 * It takes the better part of two grueling days of rough climbing and threading the gaps between precariously balanced stones, but you finally locate an archway of stone upstream that allows you to cross the burning river unscathed.
 * Ask Eb to solve this.
 * The Tidecaster summons a dreary fog that meets the lava with a sizzling, roiling profusion of steam. When the path ahead finally cools off to a merely scalding temperature, you're able to safely dash across the hardening lava flow.